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Efforts to open the county’s first full-time adult care center continued Saturday at the Stanly County Senior Center.

The Stanly Adult Care Center (SACC), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization started in December 2021, hosted a fashion show fundraiser.

Attendees enjoyed a cocktail hour and dinner before seeing some of the latest fashions from Livi Bug’s, Make It Personal, Pretty Please Boutique, McRae’s Jewelers and the Tillery Tradition.

The fundraiser, according to Adult Care Center Executive Director Sandy Carelock, served as a networking event for the group and the community while featuring local vendors.

“This is a way for us to show community connections and how we are working together with the community,” Carelock said. “Not only (are we) increasing awareness for the Stanly Adult Care Center to come, but we are promoting the small businesses here.”

The fashion show raised $20,301 for the organization.

Carelock, in comments before the fashion show, credited North Carolina State Rep. Wayne Sasser and State Sen. Carl Ford, both in attendance, for helping raise $1 million from the General Assembly.

The organization has purchased a property on 1920 Woodhurst Lane In Albemarle, the former Anderson Grove Preschool, and has plans to renovate the two buildings, according to Carelock. The project is $4 million total, with $2.5 million in renovations costs, and the group is about $300,000 short from a “comfort level” to start the renovations, she added.

Adult day care will be available once the center opens from 6:45 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and will provide activities, two meals, health care services and transportation for participants.

The idea for the new center came from Johnsie Barringer, who was taking her husband to Concord and driving as much as 100 miles a day.

“She wanted to make sure other people didn’t have that hardship,” Carelock said.

Barringer died in April 2018, but two weeks before she passed she met with Carelock. The last thing she said to her, Carelock said, was, “I relinquish my dream to you” and “I love you.”

She added Barringer “would be beyond excited to see how we are moving forward to make sure others do not have to face the hardships she endured to take care of her husband. She understood the value of having help available to keep him at home and protect their family unit. Johnsie would tell us how adult day health services ‘gave him a life and saved mine.’ ”

Many of the current Adult Care Center board members were part of that initiative to bring a satellite facility from Concord. Eventually, the group got permission to become a standalone facility.

“There is a different energy. Everything about (the center) is governed by Stanly County,” Carelock said. “Everything we are going to do as a center will have community connections. Our goal is to help people age in place at home and use the resources available in the community.”

Currently, the only facility providing adult respite care is the CARE Cafe next to the Taylor House in Albemarle. The CARE Cafe is open Monday, Tuesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and does not provide all-day care.

Carelock said the Stanly Adult Care Center “is the next step” in adult respite care when participants are not able to feed themselves.

“We will fill that gap between the CARE Cafe and assisted living,” she said. “Stanly Adult Care Center is making great strides to bring these services to Stanly County. This will make a huge impact in the quality of life for our friends and family.

“We need help to make Johnsie’s dream a reality and get this facility renovated and open for operation. The fashion show was a way to increase awareness about our cause and ways the community can help; it also served as a way to promote local business at the same time. ”

Carelock said plans are to make the fashion show an annual event, and the group has other fundraising activities planned for next year.